High value, high efficiency speakers for SET amps

Get the right speaker cables and interconnects and there will nothing vague about imaging. In my system when I borrowed my brother DeCapo, the imaging wasn't any less in the Tekton in absolute terms, yet it slayed the DeCapo in almost every other parameter. All rooms are different. Tubes, interconnect, speaker wires all make difference. And of course we all differ in how we like music presented, what we value most/least. When it comes to presentation of the music I'm a timbral listener, the tone, natural, organic flow, the harmonic rightness, texture, fullness, weight, mean more to me than spotlight imaging. In real life music that spotlight imaging doesn't exist. And when it comes to beer budgets with Champange tastes the Tektons are a remarkable feat. The reviewer in Stereotimes stated that the Tekton Reference was kissing cousins to the DeVore 0/96 in sound, they cost $12,000, the Tekton Reference $799 in its Plain Jane/beer budget form, or you could upgrade the veneer and get better capacitors for a few hundred more.

When I get the Franks from Coincident I 'm going to pause long and hard about speaker match. I've listened now to the DeVore 0/96 and O/93, $12,000 and $8,000 respectively, and I know now from personal experience (not in my room), the Tekton gives you 95% of same. I also know AN/Snell which I've owned in past, same comment as above. The New Omega Alnico sounds intriguing at about $3,000 plus. Rabbi, what's the budget? People keep recommending speakers, even used, that seem to exceed what you want to spend...best, Rob.

Generally with SETs if you really want to hear what the amp does (where the 'magic' is) its important that you don't push it past about 20-25% of full power.

For this reason you usually need a really efficient speaker to show the amp off. In the case of a 300b-based amplifier, this means you need to get good sound pressures with only about 2 watts. This requires a high efficiency loudspeaker. FWIW, Coincident does not make a speaker with the efficiency required, especially in a larger room.

This is not to say that such a combo will not make sound- it will- but it will not show off either the capabilities of the amp nor those of the speaker. You simply need more power than a single 300b (or even a pair) can provide.

Atmasphere,
Rebbi's room is about 11x12, my office system, 14x16. Believe me, even true 92db, 8ohm, no problem. My 8 watt Coincident Dynamo is sublime with my 95db or 98db Lores depending on model. How loud do you listen? I generally like about 80db, sometime louder, never a problem. I could't listen much louder in a sustained way without ruining my ears. I really loved the Gizmo and OTL, but even he eventually went The Big Tannoy with 300B. Best Rob

Hi Rob,
You asked the pertinent question, how loud do you listen?
My Coincident Total Eclipse II are 94 db at 14 ohms. I initially drove them with my 100 watt push pull (60 watt in triode) KT 88/6550 tubes. This was a really good sounding match. You know what? The 8 watt 300b SET is even better sounding with these speakers. The SET relegated the higher power amp into the inactive components closet! The bigger amplifier can ultimately play louder but this is irrelevant. I would never listen at the levels high enough for this supposed advantage to materialize. The 8 watt amp is more than enough and after 6 years of blissful listening I appreciate this amplifier more than ever.

I listen at SPL of 75-85 db c weighted, this is plenty of volume for my needs. I on rare occasions listen at 95-100 db and even then the sound remains composed and un strained. The SET is better in virtually all musical parameters that matter most to me. Rob are priorities seem the same. My experience is that a good quality lower powered amp will drive 92-95 db speakers wonderfully. It's a question of desired volume level, room size, sonic/musical priorities etc. Rebbi you'll do very well with your current 8 watt SET IMHO. The realism and naturalness of music reproduction is better with the SET than the higher power push pull amplifier.
Charles,

From Jeff Day Wordpress Blog, as Reviewer for Posive Feedback/6moons his listening bias which exactly matches my own:

I thought it might be handy for those following my writing at Positive Feedback Online to know what my listening biases are to aid you in interpreting and decoding my reviews. Just to alert you, my listening perspective is somewhat of a minority opinion in the Hi-Fi community of North America, but will be more familiar to those listeners in Turkey, Africa, and Japan, who tend to be more familiar with timbral ways of listening. My hierarchy of importance is aligned more closely to how well a Hi-Fi rig plays the musical content of recordings (I know, it’s a heretical concept), rather than how it ‘sounds’ in the more traditional audiophile ‘sonic’ sense.

As a result of my being drawn towards the musical content of recordings, I tend to be a bit more of a timbral listener than is typical for a lot of Westerners, meaning that the reproduction of the textures, colors, and tones & overtones in the music are really important to me. To this end I look for timbral realism at the band level (the band’s signature ‘sound’) and at the individual instrument level (the unique ‘voices’ of instruments). I want them to sound recognizably like themselves in tone and texture, so that their full tone color can develop, which I think helps lend a feeling of beauty and expressiveness to the music. I like the melody (the tune you ‘whistle while you work’), harmony (treble & bass accompaniments to the melody) and rhythm (the steady beat that determines the tempo) to have a life-like flow and connectedness in how the musicians interact—just like in real life. I want dynamics (variations in loudness) to evoke that which I hear in life for an emotional connection to the melody and rhythm. For loudness I like my music playback to be similar to live loudness levels, which for the kind of music I listen to the most, jazz, usually means 80 dB or louder. Finally, I want tempo portrayed so that both the mood and speed of the music are conveyed through it, just like it is with music in real life.

I consider the sonic performance of a Hi-Fi rig on the non-musical artifacts of the recording process to be of value, but of less importance to me than the performance on the musical content of recordings (as above). So things like transparency (being able to ‘see’ into the recording), soundstage (the three dimensions of the recorded space in width, height and depth), soundspace (the acoustic ‘space’ of the soundstage), and imaging (the feeling of solidity and localization of instruments & musicians on the soundstage) are important to me, but they are not my primary focus – the musical content is.

So I like my cake (the musical content of recordings) with a little frosting (the sonic artifacts of the recording process) for a balanced taste treat. Too much frosting and not enough cake puts me off. So that’s me, and you might be different, but at least now you know how.

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